Friday, January 4, 2013

Pre World Cup races in New Zealand and infection in my thigh

The first race was a sprint held in on Roskill Campus in Auckland. I did an OK performance, except a 15 seconds time loss to the 8th control, because I didn't see the control flag behind a wall. My result was a 4th place, 29 seconds behind William Lind.

The three last races were held in Woodhill Forest, North West of Auckland. In the first two of them I was running in easy speed as training, but in the last one I was pushing harder. I did an OK race, but had some smaller mistakes. My result was an 8th place, almost 4 minutes behind Olav Lundanes.

New Years Eve was celebrated with runners from New Zealand, Denmark and a few other countries playing cricket and barbecuing in Greg and Claire Flynn’s place North of Auckland.

The last days have unfortunately been far from how I had planed. At the first pre race in forest I got a thorn in my right thigh. That’s quite normal for an orienteering runner, and after the race I thought I was able to squeeze it out with my nails, and it felt fine the following day.

On the 1st January I felt some pain when I was running, and during the day I became more and more swallowed and red in the area around where I had got the thorn. With a needle I was able to take out another thorn, and in the evening I also started with penicillin after talking to the doctor of the Norwegian team.

The next morning it was even more swallowed, and I had problems to walk, so I went to a local doctor. She said I had got a serious infection, and opened the area where I had got the thorn, and was able to take out some more small thorn pieces. The last 3 days I have got drips with penicillin (intravenous) in addition to stronger tablets, and it will hopefully kill the infection.

The infection is now less aggressive in the area where I got the thorn, but have spread to a bigger part of my thigh. Today I took ultrasound, and it looks like it’s not any more pieces of thorn left, so that’s good to know. I am still not able to walk, and will probably have to skip the first World Cup race on Sunday. So at the moment I am mainly lying in my bed waiting to get rid of the infection, so I can start running again.